Wednesday Mar 26, 2014

In the past four months, several Public Sector entities have asked us whether the PeopleSoft Projects (ESA) applications can help them in this age of increased accountability and scrutiny. As we conversed about the challenges of tracking money provided by multiple appropriations, it very quickly became apparent that many of these Public Sector customers and prospective customers were not aware of the vast PeopleSoft fund management capabilities they either already owned and had not yet deployed or could implement as part of their PeopleSoft Financials solution.

Who needs MFD? Organizations that invoice and receive payment from one or more other entities to fund their projects are likely to benefit from MFD. Some examples of organizations that use MFD are metro area transit agencies and state highway departments of transportation, which typically pay for their capital projects with funds from Federal agencies (e.g., the Federal Highway Administration), state agency appropriations, and their own capital budgets. Beyond transportation-oriented organizations, MFD can be utilized by public school districts, hospitals and medical schools affiliated with public universities, non-profit agencies, and any other type of organization that has its mission funded by one or more appropriations. (Even a commercial enterprise that has its projects funded by multiple customers can benefit from MFD.)

What is Multiple Funds Distribution? MFD is a major feature contained in the PeopleSoft Project Costing application. In short, the MFD feature contains a framework for you to setup rules that will dictate how a project is going to pay for each transaction it incurs and a process that applies those rules to incoming transactions. As your organization executes the project, the MFD feature works with other major functions in PeopleSoft Project Costing, such as Pricing Engine, Limits Processor, Accounting Rules, and more, to ensure that each cost booked to the project is distributed to the proper funding source. There is a great deal of flexibility in MFD's rules enabling you to effective date them, set thresholds after which the participation rates change, copy rules from one project activity to another, and simplify the accounting required for projects with complex funding agreements.

Why is MFD in the PeopleSoft suite? We built this feature, because a large percentage of our PeopleSoft Financials applications customers are Public Sector entities, such as state and local governments and agencies, universities, and healthcare providers, whose mission is funded by multiple external parties.

When was MFD released? We made MFD generally available in the 9.1 release of PeopleSoft Financials Supply Chain Management, and since its initial release, we have enhanced it to simplify the administration of rules based on feedback from customers who have implemented and use MFD.

Where and how can I find this feature? If you implement or upgrade to either the 9.1 or 9.2 release of PeopleSoft Financials Supply Chain Management, you will have the ability to activate the MFD feature in PeopleSoft Project Costing.